NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 3 



recently declared his belief that the Chaldseo-Babylonian theory 

 was the undoubted source of the similar theory propounded by 

 the Ionic philosopher Anaximander, in the sixth century, the 

 Greek thinkers deriving this view from the Babylonians through 

 the Phoenicians ; and he also allows that from the same source its 

 main features were adopted into both the accounts given in the 

 first of our sacred books, and in this general view the most emi- 

 nent Christian Assyriologists concur. 



It is true that each of these sacred accounts of ours contra- 

 dicted the other. In that part of the first or Elohistic account 

 given in the first chapter of Genesis the waters bring forth fishes, 

 marine animals, and birds (Genesis, i, 20) ; but in that part of the 

 second or Jehovistic account given in the second chapter of Gene- 

 sis both the land animals and birds are declared to have been 

 created not out of the water, but " out of the ground " (Genesis, 

 ii, 19). 



The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to explain- 

 ing away this contradiction between these two legends as regards 

 the origin of birds ; but the old current of thought, strengthened 

 by both these accounts, arrested their attention, and, passing 

 through the minds of a succession of the greatest men of the 

 Church, influenced theological opinion deeply, if not widely, for 

 ages in favor of an evolution theory. 



This ancient idea that the animals and man were produced by 

 lifeless matter at the divine command " in the beginning " was 

 afterward supplemented by the idea, strengthened doubtless by 

 Aristotle, that some of the lesser animals, especially the insects, 

 were produced by a sort of later evolution, being evoked after 

 the original creation from various sources, but chiefly from mat- 

 ter in a state of decay. 



As typical examples of this thought we may note the view 

 taken by St. Basil the Great in the fourth century. Discussing 

 the work of creation, he declares that, at the command of God, 

 " the waters were gifted with productive power " ; " from slime 

 and muddy places frogs, flies, and gnats came into being " ; and 

 he finally declares that the same voice which gave this energy 

 and quality of productiveness to earth and water shall be simi- 

 larly efficacious until the end of the world. 



This idea of the great father of the Eastern Church took even 

 stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For 

 St. Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text, 

 broke from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of 

 Scripture and spurned the generally received belief of a creative 

 process like that by which a toymaker brings into existence a 

 box of playthings. In his great treatise on Genesis he says : " To 

 suppose that God formed man from the dust with bodily hands is 



